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One Thousand Days of Angst
It has been more than a thousand days of angst since the start of COVID or its threat. This is a personal angst for me because it is my job as a physician to identify and eradicate disease. One reason that I know that this job has not been completed is that every day when I enter the hospital, I am required to put on a mask except when I am alone in my office. Three years ago, evidence of the disease was visible because I saw the images of viral pneumonia and two people that I knew died from COVID. But now, I see no serious illness or death. Symptoms of COVID infection are mild, or they are nonexistent; and the disease is discovered on a screening exam. For many months, I have gone unmasked to church, dinner parties, the mall, and transcontinental airplane trips and have met all types of strangers, yet my health is normal. For the past 50 years, I have followed meticulous rules of procedure for biologic research and medical treatment. Now the rules are different. The evidence and scientific proof for requiring masks for routine medical care is not present. The rule-makers are using different methods---political science. This does not reduce angst.
Thomas Dresser PhD, MD
Columbia, Missouri
It has been more than a thousand days of angst since the start of COVID or its threat. This is a personal angst for me because it is my job as a physician to identify and eradicate disease. One reason that I know that this job has not been completed is that every day when I enter the hospital, I am required to put on a mask except when I am alone in my office. Three years ago, evidence of the disease was visible because I saw the images of viral pneumonia and two people that I knew died from COVID. But now, I see no serious illness or death. Symptoms of COVID infection are mild, or they are nonexistent; and the disease is discovered on a screening exam. For many months, I have gone unmasked to church, dinner parties, the mall, and transcontinental airplane trips and have met all types of strangers, yet my health is normal. For the past 50 years, I have followed meticulous rules of procedure for biologic research and medical treatment. Now the rules are different. The evidence and scientific proof for requiring masks for routine medical care is not present. The rule-makers are using different methods---political science. This does not reduce angst.
Thomas Dresser PhD, MD
Columbia, Missouri
